The federal government agreed on Monday that the rainbow Pride flag could fly at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan, reversing its decision to remove it and dealing a blow to the Trump administration’s nationwide assault on diversity initiatives.
The removal of the Pride flag in February from the monument, which is in Greenwich Village, drew fierce backlash from L.G.B.T.Q. people across the country and state and local elected officials in New York, who saw it as an attack on the symbolic heart of the gay rights movement.
The agreement, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, settled a lawsuit by a group of nonprofits. They argued that the government had illegally targeted L.G.B.T.Q. people and violated a policy that allows the National Park Service to fly “non-agency” flags at federal sites if the flags provide historical context.
It is under that policy that Confederate flags are allowed to be flown at sites managed by the Park Service, including Gettysburg National Military Park.
“The government has acknowledged what we argued from day one: The Pride flag belongs at Stonewall,” Alexander Kristofcak, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement on Monday. “The flag will be restored, it will fly officially and permanently, and the court will stand ready to enforce that commitment.”
Under the terms of the settlement, the government agreed to permanently return the flag to the federal site’s official flagpole within seven days, alongside an American flag and the flag of the National Park Service.
The Pride flag was quietly removed from the Stonewall National Monument in early February after the Department of the Interior issued federal guidance on displaying “non-agency” flags at land administered by the National Park System.
Employees at the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar for which the monument is named, noticed the rainbow flag was missing when they arrived at work on Feb. 9. Rainbow flags remained displayed at separate historical sites in the area that were administered by the city and state governments.
Days later, hundreds of people rallied at the site, and elected officials raised a Pride flag on the flagpole in defiance of the Trump administration. The flag has flown at the site since then in an unofficial capacity, but without the agreement reached on Monday it could have been removed at any time.
The flag’s removal was the second time in less than a year that the Trump administration had targeted the Stonewall site, which commemorates the birth of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement.
Shortly after Mr. Trump’s inauguration last year, the National Park Service removed the word “transgender” from prominent sections of the federal monument’s website.
The Trump administration has mounted a broad assault on what it considers to be diversity initiatives, including by scouring historical and other public sites for symbolic displays like flags, images and word choices that it deems to be inappropriate.
The National Park Service has played an important role in that effort. Since Mr. Trump’s inauguration last year, it has removed an exhibit on George Washington’s ownership of slaves from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, dismantled a plaque about climate change at Muir Woods National Monument in California, and stopped showing films about immigrant and female textile workers at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts.
The administration has also banned the display of rainbow Pride flags at American embassies and consulates worldwide. The Biden administration at times displayed Pride and Black Lives Matter flags at such sites.
The lawsuit settled on Monday was filed in February by a group of nonprofits led by a foundation honoring Gilbert Baker, the artist who created the rainbow Pride flag in 1978.
“Gilbert Baker created the Rainbow Pride flag as a symbol of hope and liberation,” Charles Beal, the president of the Gilbert Baker Foundation, said in a statement announcement the deal. “Today, that symbol is restored to the place where it belongs.”
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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